Startup Weekend Inspires Entrepreneurs in Hamilton Again!

54 Hour event brings together designers, developers, and more to launch companies quickly!

Hamilton, ON (April 30, 2012) â€“ Last weekend, 95 developers, designers, marketers, business professionals, animators, and engineers came together in the Collaboratory at Mohawk Collegeto spend 54 hours trying to launch new startups in Hamilton.

3 months ago, Hamiltonâ€™s Regional Innovation Centre (RIC), Innovation Factory (iF) announced that they were once again joining forces with Software Hamiltonto bring the international movement of Startup Weekend back to Hamiltonafter their successful first event in October 2011. This time, other local organizations came onboard to help support and promote the event, including two other local RICs â€“ Haltonâ€™s HalTech and Niagaraâ€™s nGenâ€“ and grassroots group Silicon Halton. In addition, Mohawk College(Host Sponsor), Ridout & Maybee LLP(Gold Sponsor), Coral CEA(Silver Sponsor), PopChips and Deliverizer (food and beverage sponsors) provided resources to help the event gain momentum.

The 54-hour event was designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. Beginning on Friday night, the 95 attendees met, shared their concepts through a series of public pitches, and voted on the most popular of 29 ideas before breaking down into 10 teams (they named themselves PassageU, StartupN.com, Honey Badger Automation, Pangea, The Help, SoLED, Nervu, Drawble, GymChum and Healthy Baby Steps). The teams spent the rest of the weekend on brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, and culminated on Sunday night with demos and presentations. Participants created working startups during the event and were able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks.

In the news ~
In case you missed it, the Hamilton Spectator did a piece on SWH2 – see it here. Plus, it made the FRONT PAGE!

How you can stay connected with other attendees ~
â€¢ Join the Facebook group and upload your photos there
â€¢ Follow @starthamilton on Twitter
â€¢ Follow our blog
â€¢ Join us at Startup Drinks on each month for more collaboration!
â€¢ Join us at Startup Weekend Hamilton 3 – details to be announced soon!

Reflections/suggestions ~
This was our second Startup Weekend Hamilton and we are so proud of everyone who participated – it takes a lot of guts to try out a startup and a lot of strength to do it in 54 hours!. But, our next one will be even bigger and better! We’d love your feedback – there’s always something new to learn! Please send me your suggestions, big or small, on ways we can make the Startup Weekend experience better for YOU. Or, if you loved Loved LOVED it, send us a testimonial for our website!